Writing nonfiction of various kinds has been instructive and entertaining as well as paying the rent.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
I like to get paid for doing basic research, so it's pleasant to write some nonfiction about it.
I find that nonfiction writers are the likeliest to turn out interesting novels.
Nonfiction that uses novelistic devices and strategies to shape the work. That's material that I really like.
I've written fiction... but the nonfiction has always received the most attention.
I really enjoy doing both, but I didn't write nonfiction until 1994.
Writing a nonfiction story is like cracking a safe. It seems impossible at the beginning, but once you're in, you're in.
Writing fiction is for me a fraught business, an occasion of daily dread for at least the first half of the novel, and sometimes all the way through. The work process is totally different from writing nonfiction. You have to sit down every day and make it up.
I have been aspiring to write some sort of literature for a long time.
I used to be a freelance journalist, so I had to write fast, but I always found writing nonfiction constraining. I like the freedom of fiction, where I get to invent everything, and tidy, conclusive endings are within my control.
Nonfiction writers are the packhorses of literature. We're meant to carry the story. If we can make it up and down the mountain by a reliable if not scenic route, we have delivered. Technique is optional.